I'm not sure where to start. I bought a Droid Incredible and broke it in the first month. I tried to add the insurance through Verizon Customer Service. They told me they would process a claim and call me back within 7 days. So after about 10 days, and not hearing from them, I called back and the new customer representative said in the notes of my account it says they would call me back within 30 days and I said they told me 7 days and she was very rude and said it's 30 days, so I hung up and waited another 20+ days and not to my surprise, they never called. So I assumed my claim wasn't accepted and I continued to use my phone (very little) as it still worked just the screen was shattered (which is another story on the lack of durability of that phone). But after about 3 months, I decided it wasn't worth it to keep it as I couldn't really travel with it or take it anywhere, so I decided to cancel my service. This is about 5 months after signing the contract. So I cancelled and told the customer representative that I tried to work with Verizon, but no one seemed to care what my problem was, so now I'm cancelling and will get the new iPhone from AT&T. So after about a week, someone from the "win you back" team called me and THEY CALLED ME. To Win me back. She said what if I can get you a new Droid Incredible for free, a free month of service and waive the early termination fee (ETF), would you be interested in coming back to Verizon. And I said, well for that offer, sure I would consider it. So she put me on hold for a while then came back to the phone and said "I'm sorry, but I can't do that"...ARE YOU KIDDING ME! She called me and offered me a deal and then TOOK IT BACK! I was speechless and she revised the offer based on the fact that it had been less than 6 months on my contract (which she should have known when SHE CALLED ME) and I said NO THANK YOU. To have someone working in your Win you back team who makes an offer they can't give, is ridiculous and terrible service in my opinion. But based on my Verizon experience, this was really no surprise. So a month later, I get the $349 early termination fee ($49 of the total was taxes) and I went on Verizon's website once again to see what I can do and saw that Verizon now has the iPad, which I wanted. So I called and finally this girl was incredibly helpful (they're always helpful when you're buying something) and she signed me up for a MIFI contract for 2 years and waived the ETF and it's only $20/month, so in the long run a much better deal than the $349 ETF for nothing and I can actually use the MIFI. So then she gave me another number to call to order the iPad which was a bundle offer with the MIFI and a free case. So the next morning I called Verizon to order the iPad through the telephone sales department. And I wait anxiously for my new iPad and MIFI, (which by the way isn't really the optimum way to get 3G), but worked for me because of the ETF I owed. So my iPad and MIFI come in the mail, but no case. So I called Verizon only to get the run around ONCE AGAIN. The customer representative and I spent another hour on the phone arguing about whether or not I had bought the "bundle" and whether or not I deserved the $20 iPad case and the $4 MIFI case. I mean $4 case and that's retail....So once again I'M SPEECHLESS. He called in the Telephone sales department in Pittsburgh as that is where he can see I purchased the iPad from and she said No that was ordered from West Coast and gave him another number to call. So he called that number and he said no that was midwest and so I said (as I'm conferenced in the call) that this is unbelievable we just called the midwest and they sent us to you and he got mad and asked my representative to put me on hold and he refused to speak to me. Oh, and by the way, I asked several times to speak to a supervisor and he refused to let me speak to a supervisor....SOME CUSTOMER SERVICE. So after over an hour of the run around, I had to get off the phone and this customer representative was supposed to keep working the issue and call me back. AND GUESS WHAT.....HE NEVER CALLED BACK. So I went on-line and bought myself a case (not from Verizon) and I WILL NEVER DO BUSINESS WITH VERIZON AGAIN. How many customer service departments does Verizon have? Why can't you call Verizon and talk to someone who can sell you a MIFI and an iPad (and the case)? Why can't you talk to one person who has the authority to "win you back"? Very complicated customer service organization. When their own employees can't navigate their organization, it's over complicated.

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Verizon Wireless - they never work for you

Posted by Lei on 10/19/2003

ATLANTA, GEORGIA -- Each time when you call Verizonwireless, it welcomes you by the logo "We never stop working for you". However, this is a shameless lie. In fact, it is very willing to apologize to you but will never solve any issues you were trapped in. Here is my story.

I was charmed by Verizon Wireless' advertisement of their coverage area when I was to travel coast-to-coast this summer, and bought a national plan. The trouble was started from the first day I own it and never stopped and get solved through their customer service. I was a loyal customer at the beginning but now I am thinking of getting rid of it even with the cost of more than $200 penalty.

A. "free phone" with extraordinary high tax
I was supposed to be given two "FREE" phones however the shop charged me more than $40 of
taxes under the claim that the tax was counted by the retail value of the phones, which they labelled about $250 each. However, next day I found that the original price of this kind of phones was only
about $60 each. The tax must have been swallowed by the unfaith dealer.

B. Battery life as low as 30% announced and was certified "normal"
The manual book of the cell phones said that the battery could last 200 hours stand-by and could talk up to 240 minutes. However, the second day I found that the battery was exhausted and I actually talked no more than 20 minutes. I returned to the store and asked for an replacement but they just told me that this was normal because the theoretical maximum last time was measured
under a Verizon tower! And the actual battery life was typically 40% or less because most of the areas was only 2-3 stars. Why can't they just tell the average lifetime of batteries? Who would only use
cell phones under a wireless tower?

C. Charger only charge under your supervise
Then the very next week we noticed that the charger was hard to get a trustful contact with the cell phone and I asked for replacement. They replaced it but the problem remained.

But those were only the start of the troubles.

D. Dead spots in urban Atlanta and they don't care
We then moved to the other coast. And to be our astonishment, in Great Atlanta, the cell phone could not receive strong enough signal in my apartment community! Verizonwireless' customer service just told me that my area should have been well covered by a Verizon tower 3 miles away and refused to do any in-situ evolution. Thus my dream of using cell phone as home phone was broken and I had to swallow the cost of more than $30 a month for another home phone line, in a "well covered" area!

E. The plan design is used as excuse of refusing improve service under unusual situation
Then the real trouble comes. Since the main purpose of the cellphone was for keeping contact with my wife, we purchased a "family shared plan". And we had never need more than 400 peak minutes for calling others. However, since the cellphone did not work in the Atlanta apartment, I have to call the
home phone for talking with my wife, which was always done through cell phones priorly, and got charged air time. This input nearly 300 minutes of extra peak air time penalty into the family plan, and greatly limited the availability of the cellphone for talking with friends in other states. I tried to negotiate with Verizonwireless about including my home phone number into the free-to-call list, even with a fee. However, they coldly refused by "cannot create a unique plan for you"! Even, as a computer software specialist, I am very clear how easy can this be, just add my home phone number into their cell phone number data base. The only thing they'd like to do was to tease me into a more expensive plan.

F. Cheating dealer is not cared by the company and they just like to make money through the cheated customers
For the same reason, we for the first time called over 400 minutes peak time while we was made in believe that our limit was 400 minute EACH LINE, which I double checked with the California dealer before we bought
the plan. I was told a lie. This cost me $40 and Verizonwireless refused any option of reducing my cost, no matter taking the excuse or temporarily treat me as a 500 minute customer for the particular month or
rollover the extra minutes into the next month. The very second day I noticed an advertisement saying that minutes rollover plan was now an option offer by another cellphone service provider.

G. "Easy move" made me uneasy and costed me $16 in the dark
Mean time, I called their "Easy move" department for getting my phones local numbers. They did it in a couple of minutes. I thought it was a great job however I was totally wrong. I got my money stolen again. In the next billing circle I realized the bill was separated into "California part" and "Georgia part". And
my California last month statement was missing and nobody told me how was my 1-month-in-advance payment was used. Then I called Verizonwireless again and they just coldly told me that they had no way to combine my Georgia billing circle with the California one, and I had no option but apply by myself to their California branch for a refund! I did this and after nearly three month (!) and get a $18 check from
their Califronia branch. How curious! My California billing circle started from the 4th, and the "easy moving" happened on the 19th. I only used half of the California month and 70% of my pre-payment was gone.
Where was my another $14? Without a California last statement, I can only guess that they also cut my free air time in the middle of the month and charged the extra! What a trick of making money! Be sure
to use their "Easy move" at the last day of your origin!

H. Hardwire repair is not available for most dealers
And the troubles kept going. The plug of the ear set I bought with the phones broke in the jack without and reason. And none of the retail stores we visited in the last month had a way to extract it. One of our phones was disabled in vehicle plus a $20 loss of the ear set. No warrant since we cannot go back to the retail store we bought the phones.

I. Rapid dial steals your air time and overhear your activity
Over all of these one-time troubles, I often got suspicious nonsense voice mails in my box and suspicious call-out minutes on my bill. The Verizonwireless customer service got no idea about what was happening until I occasionally noticed that it automatically assign a fast-dial code for every saved numbers. And those code got activated if the phone got compressed in my pocket or bag. How stupid! I disabled all fast-dial
and stopped the dirty trick. Thanks to myself but not useless Verizonwireless' no-oriented customer service specialists.

The very yesterday I heard from my colleague that he got a national plan from another provider with 4 times more peak minutes and all others the same, with $10 more than my plan. It seems that the time is coming for me to get rid of Verizonwireless and let them enjoy the 3 months stop-contract fee.

I am going to say good-bye to erizonwireless and hope the trash company goes to hell sooner or later.

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Technical Support Fiasco

Posted by tinyhuntress on 07/25/2010

We live in a rural area and have had cellphone service since our local phone company put up cell towers, over 10 years ago. All the towers around us were owned by Midwest Wireless, who sold out to Alltel, who sold out to Verizon last year. We had great coverage in our area even though it is quite hilly. Before Verizon took over, if we had any problems we would call customer service and everything would be fixed within hours. We were happy consumers. Not any more!

In April of this year, we went from having 3 to 5 bars of service at home to 0 to 2 bars. Calls were garbled, dropped, or unable to be made or received. Conversations were impossible for more than 10 seconds. We conduct some of our business from our home and using our cellphones became impossible. I called Verizon's technical support and was directed to try reprogramming our phones. When that didn't change anything, I was told that we might be needing a network extender, which they would supply for free and that the "Can you hear me now" person would be coming to our home within 72 hours to check our signal. This was assuming that they found nothing wrong with the towers in the area.

Things did improve slightly. Some cell conversations were not too garbled, but we still had no service(my husband's phone keeps telling him that he's leaving the service area, while he's sitting in the house!) and had 0-2 bars of coverage. We were very busy, so I waited until the beginning of June before calling again, since I knew that it would be another hour plus phone call. I have now called a total of 7 times, with no call being under an hour.

We still have no service most of the time. We can not receive nor make calls reliably. We have tried calling each other at home and some of the calls never even register as missed calls...nothing! I have talked to at least 14 people at Verizon, since you never get connected to Tech Support first, even if you punch the correct buttons in the phone maze. You always end up talking to Customer Service, who, when pushed, will eventually connect you to Tech Support.

I have been told that the field tech "could not find the address" multiple times, even though I supplied, not only the address, but the GPS coordinates, the nearest major intersection, and the driving directions from a major city. My tickets have been escalated at least twice and closed out without my being contacted multiple times. I was told that I didn't have enough dropped calls for anyone to bother checking our service(well, when you have NO SERVICE you won't have many dropped calls!)

The latest ticket has supposedly not been resolved and was opened more than 2 weeks ago. I was told that I would get a call back a week ago Wednesday. Instead, a text message was sent to my husband, saying that the issue was still open and to expect the call a week ago Friday. When no one had called by last Friday, I called again. I was told that the ticket was still open and nothing could be done until it was closed. The representative could not tell when that would be. I asked to speak to a supervisor. I was told that there were none available, but that I would be contacted by the supervisor within 48 hours. I left my cell phone number, my home telephone number, and my email address. Guess what? That deadline came and went a few hours ago with no call or email.

I have now been told that I need a network extender, but they won't send me one until they verify my signal, but they can't verify my signal if they don't come out to my house, but they won't come out to my house since they don't know where I live, since they obviously don't know how to use directions, maps, or GPSs.

I could understand all of this if we had never had cell phone service at this location, but we had great coverage for years. The only difference that I can see is that we now have a company that can't seem to fix cell tower problems or really cares about customer service.

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Verizon fraudulent billing practices

Posted by DGHOhio on 06/09/2010

CRANBERRY TWP, PENNSYLVANIA -- Verizon Wireless is using fraudulent billing methods on Cell phones. One my phone bill went form $160.82 to $342.46 in one month. I called Verizon Wireless and asked for the details of the cell phone bill. I had already gone over the Verizon Wireless bill line by line. In the Verizon cell phone bill for the cell service for my family was a data charge of $183.64 for my service period from April 14 to May 13, 2010. I have no data service, and all my phones of my family we asked Verizon to be data blocked when we got phones that can do data. On May 2 one of our cell phones ran up thirteen hours of data usage. It belong's to my daughter she is 26, and she knows what she did on the day in question May 2,2010. She knows she ran no data on her phone. She is a college graduate, and an M. D. My daughter says other than calling me, and my other daughter her phone log then shows this thirteen hour hook up for data she did ask for, nor approve any hook up to anything for data on her phone on the day the phone company Verizon bill rang up the fraudulent charges. The phone hooked up after one of her phone calls is all we can figure and ran for thirteen hours. Her phone, and all our phones that can do data were requested when we got them from Verizon to be data blocked. Her phone is over a year old and was purchase pre the Verizon Wireless new contract data plan requirements for PDA or smart phones. Yet here is her phone hooking up and running for thirteen hours to who knows what while it lay on her kitchen counter. The Verizon representatives said they did not know what the phone did but the charge was valid and we owed $183.64 in total for data of which 181.66 was charged to my daughters phone when she thought the phone was off. The other 1.99 of the Verizon fraudulent billing for data was charged to my wife's phone which is so old it can not do any data. They removed that their mistake, you think. My daughter's phone was off and laying on a kitchen counter and also blocked from the internet on May 2, 2010 we thought. Verizon was contacted over and over. Verizon lowered the charge to half of the $181.66 data charge. Verizon said they issued something they call a Diamond ticket to see what the phone did. Watch out for Representative Topaz at Verizon she is a crook in on this fraudulent billing scheme. They, Verizon Wireless never got back to me to tell me what the phone did, I quess Diamond ticket means buying representative Topaz a Diamond ring. Get this the very first Verizon Representative I called said my $181.66 data charge was nothing the representative from Verizon said she had just got off the phone with a customer that their cell phone ran up over a seven hundred dollar data charge in the same Verizon billing period. Oh by the way they say the fee is 1/2 cent per kilobyte downloaded or used. Ha Ha on us dumb sucker Verizon customer's is the way the representative sounded with their attitudes. Well I called them Verizon again the day before the Verizon bill was due. The IP address (75.246.69.224) given to me for the data hook up shows up only as a Verizon IP address. Oh the Diamond ticket never did give me anything Verizon never said what they found. Right form Topaz's mouth "it is a valid charge" with no answer to the Diamond ticket she issued weeks earlier, and basically you owe what ever the phone rang up too bad. So after like calling for three weeks we were held up and robbed by Verizon Wireless for a service charge of data for something that was supposed to be blocked in the first place. Verizon now assures me the cell phones are blocked for data, again liars I don't trust them one bit. If someone is out there suing Verizon for fraud count me in and call me D G Hyatt Elyria, OH 440-315-3248 or 440 323-6517. We paid our fraudulent Verizon Wireless phone bill we have superior credit and want to keep it that way. Please any lawyers out there starting a class action lawsuit on Verizon Wireless call me, or email me dghyatt@windstream.net. D Greg Hyatt.

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Beware Alltel Customers Now Owned By Verizon-Bad Experiences

Posted by stephend on 08/22/2009

FAYETTEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA -- I normally have a bill of about$114 each month when Alltel still owned the company. I just received a bill for $2300+ and while in there office another ladies whose over $900. Alltel customers were told by Verizon they would honor the Alltel contract plans which were far better than Verizons whose lacks the $7/month talk free after 7pm plan and requires a higher priced packages for their Friends & Family package as compared to Alltels My Circle. Well after a great deal of confusion and discussion I got them to correct the error which they say was related to their systems inability to sort out the Alltel Plan with a Verizon replacement phone for the now defunct Alltel LG scoop phone that was not working properly we had purchased full price. Well though they fixed that billing issue they still BILLED me the FULL $124 tax fron the $2300 mistake stating I would have to pay it. Then wait until the next month to get a credit for it. I told them I would not pay for their companies mistake.

To Aggravate matters the new Verizon phone will not get out here at the house when all the old Alltel phones have 4-5 bars now for about 8 years. They would not give me a phone stating it was a problem with towers in the Southport NC area and one Verizon employee told me it could take 6 months to fix but another when I asked to cancel service says he doubted it took that long that I would have to pay an early cancellation fee for $200/line.*The Verizon employee stated also the Free after 7pm Packages Alltel buyout customers are still getting could probabily end in about a year.*

SO IF YOUR WIRELESS ALLTEL PHONES ARE SWITCHED OUT WITH VERIZON AS THEY WEAR OUT OR YOU UPGRADE YOU COULD LOSE THE SWEET CHEAPER PERKS YOU ONCE HAD WITH ALLTEL. I AM STILL BEING CHARGED FOR A LINE THAT IS DEAD AND TO A COMPANY THAT HAS ME REALLY POED. WHILE AT THE US CELLUAR STORE MANY POED ALLTEL BUY OUT CUSTOMERS WERE IN THERE LOOKING INTO SWITCHING OUT. SHAME ALLTEL DIDN'T BUY VERIZON OUT AS I HAD FEW TO ANY PROBLEMS OVER MANY YEARS OF GOOD SERVICE WITH ALLTEL.

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VIP Customer

Posted by MegaStressed on 03/01/2009

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA -- This is mostly to vent. I was treated so badly by Verizon Wireless that I wanted to discontinue my account but I have family members on this network so I need to stay on it. I upgraded to a new cell phone since I'm a "VIP" customer. I admit that I didn't activate it in a timely fashion, & I didn't read the fine print on my contract which states that you only have 30 days to do so or you're charged for the full cost of the new phone. It's not an excuse but my husband suffered a stroke on 10-1-08 so I really put this activation aside for a brighter day (or month). Around mid-November I received my statement with the charges for the new phone. I immediately called Verizon to see if I could rectify the situation & have the charges credited. The representative was kind of rude but he did say that he would have to send me a manual paper contract in the US mail & I would then sign it & go into any Verizon store & they would process the contract. Once that step was done, the charges would be credited.

The representative took a long time & at the end of the call I had to remind him that I still needed to activate my new phone to avoid further problems. He admitted he had forgotten that part but he did help me activate my phone right then. I was told it would take up to 10 days to receive the contract. Well about 3 weeks went by & I received no contract so I called back. The representative said all she could do for me was sent a message to the original representative so he could rectify the problem. (?) I never heard back so I called back & I had to start all over again with another representative who said the same thing---he would have to send me a paper contract by US mail & I could take it to any Verizon store bla bla bla. He set a follow up for 10 days to call me to see if I received it.

This 3rd representative never called me back nor did I receive the contract in the mail. By this time, I had gone to the Verizon store with my daughter regarding her phone & a battery situation. Her line is also on my account. Before they could help her the representative questioned me about my bill because I had an unpaid balance. I explained the entire situation & the representative never offered another alternative, he said just to wait to receive the contract by mail & bring it back bla bla bla. My daughter was helped with her phone & we left. I called again & spoke to representative #4 & explained the story all over again & she did reinforce that she would send a new contract by US mail & she would set another follow up to make sure I received it. If not, she would talk with her supervisor as to how to proceed next, since now the December & January 09 bills had come out, still showing the unpaid balance. I also received numerous collection calls on my cell phone & collection letters in the mail.

One tiny question: how is it that Verizon can send me collection letters with no problems but cannot manage to send me my contract whatsoever? A couple of days later, my daughter called me frantically that her cell phone was turned off for non payment. I was able to call my follow up representative because I had begged her for her number & she had given it to me. I explained my service was cut off for non payment & she did help me restore it in a couple of hours. However I again stated that I'd never received the contract by mail & she said she would talk with her supervisor & would call me the next day. I asked if she could FedEx the contract & I would pay for it but she said no, the contract can only be mailed. This representative did call me the next day & she very nnonchalantly & casually said "why don't you just go to any Verizon store & sign the contract there?" WHAT? You mean all this trial & tribulation for something this simple? (And I did go the very next day & signed the contract electronically).

You mean on call #1 I could have been directed to any Verizon store, I would have gone the next day, & all of this struggle & strife would have been avoided? Not to mention 3 months worth of late fees to boot? I cannot believe it. Finally I received the new bill this week, again with the unpaid charges owing (did I forget to mention that I paid my bill in full every month minus the equipment charges since I was told they would be credited?) So I received another collection call this week but they transferred me to customer service. There I spoke with a wonderful representative who read the notes & FINALLY did credit my account & I hope & pray that this fiasco never happens again. I feel I was treated badly, while Verizon sent me a VIP card which entitles me to more frequent phone upgrades but after this experience I'm afraid to use them. Whew!

What a ride from such a large corporation! The reps aren't properly trained & I don't really blame them, it's a corporate issue. Thank you for listening.

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Verizon Wireless Contract Rip Off

Posted by Verizon Victim on 11/29/2007

92203, CALIFORNIA -- I have found that contacting the PUC instead of trying to reason with Verizon saves a lot of grief and speeds up the resolution. I wish everyone would contact the PUC with their Verizon problems so that they are publicly documented. The PUC would then recognize that Verizon has a nationwide problem that needs to be corrected.

My Story: Verizon put my mother in law on an extended contract without her knowledge when she inquired about the charges on her account. As far as I can tell they put her on unlimited nights and weekends which I think she already had. If she did not have the unlimited nights and weekends the change would not have benefited her because she had 400 minutes to use each month and rarely went over 100 and never 200. The phone stopped working and they wanted to charge her for the battery. After I researched her needs, I found out that she could get another phone from another provider for less than Verizonâs battery charge without a contract and save money each month on her usage. Verizon told me that she would have to pay an early cancellation penalty of $179 if she cancelled. I filed a PUC complaint and continued to make payments. After Verizon received notification of the complaint they agreed to close the account without penalty and refund all money paid on the account since my attempt to cancel the account (total of $255.19). One month ago they put $192.76 back into her bank account and she has a $62.43 credit balance on her account. I called today to try to get the refund and come to the realization that I will have to file another complaint to get it resolved. The account is closed and has a $62.43 credit balance. You would think that Verizon would refund it without any questions.

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Verizon Is Regret

Posted by Arshad on 12/25/2013

Rating: 1/51

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS -- We are with Verizon for about 6 months now after US Cellular has moved out of Illinois.
One of our cell phone stopped working, I went to local store for help, they can’t and the worst is VERIZON DON’T GIVE LOANER PHONES, and VERIZON will male you replacement phone and you will be lucky if you get replacement within a week.
I talked to customer services representative (I have her name and ID #) and asked for replacement and I understood, that my phone will reach me in 5 days by regular mail or I can expedite it by paying $7, and for sure I opted and agreed to pay $7, two days after received an email that I will receive my phone in next 5 days. I got upset and called customer service again, of course got connected to new person and after describing the whole situation, she said “VERIZON DON’T EXPEDITE LOANER PHONES” I couldn’t figure out who was lying, and she kept asking me “is there anything else I could do to help me”.

If you are with Verizon and something happen to your phone, you are in mess; you will be out of phone for whole week if you are lucky. And if it is your work phone just imagine like mine, I started looking for other options already. Verizon is Regret.

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Incompetence and Fraud

Posted by Satyanauth on 08/07/2013

Rating: 1/51

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY -- I have been a Verizon customer about 10 years, my payment was automatic debit from my account. Six months ago some idiot in their accounts department screwed up and they disconnected my service, and charged me all types of fees, I gave them a new credit card for automatic deduction, to my surprise I just got a letter from them threatening to cancel my service for non payment, so I went online and saw they had my acc info but failed to debit my now past due bill.

Is it just gross incompetence or just a bunch of jerks working there.
I am going to make sure all the members of my family and friends find another company.

First if you let them know in no uncertain terms that no, you do not want to switch out of your 'no contract leave anytime pay as you go' plan into a two year contract -- they recoil as if you literally have become a leper and have a horribly contagious disease.

You need some extra help? Maybe a tiny price match discount?

No problem -- sign up for the two year contract and they are soooo nice.

You refuse to switch to a contract?

Tough sh*t, pal -- no discounts, a bare minimum of hostile treatment and a "why are you wasting my time" look comes over their face.

Avoid this Verizon branch.

The guy who said he was the manager [snip] was the absolute rudest employee of them all.